Tag: fire

We recently experienced our first (and hopefully last) house fire. Everyone evacuated safely and my two young boys were excited to hang out in the back of a fire truck. And we have house insurance so all is well, right? Ya, I thought so too.

Two days into our “adventure” (that’s what we are calling it for the kids’ sake) I came upon this postand the paragraph regarding control hit me like a ton of bricks.

I live my daily life like I am control of it. I drive to work, I stop for coffee, I pay my bills online (always late, but alas, I pay them), I parent my children (although this may be in doubt) and I feel secure and confident in my independence when I make things happen and plans come to fruition. I acquire material goods that make life feel comfortable and easy (Snuggie anyone?).

And then something unforeseen and out of my control comes along and sideswipes me.

I am now living in an unfamiliar setting, wearing uncomfortable clothes (because they are not mine) and am reminded a hundred times a day of just how inconvenient this whole situation is (looking for tweezers – I have none, where are the extra mitts – we have none, has anyone seen the boys’ skates – they are at the “fire house” as my little guy calls it). Its overwhelming. I keep grabbing at this stuff over here, purchasing this stuff over there and rescheduling this and that but I just can’t seem to regather all of life under my domain.

Its exhausting.

And then in the quiet I realize that I was never really in control in the first place. That it was all an illusion. I can try to anticipate, accumulate, regulate and manipulate for my own sense of security but it’s all trickery.

Newsflash: I can’t see or guarantee the future.

But I do know someone who can. Someone who loves me incomprehensibly and unconditionally. Someone who tells me I must lose my life to find it. Someone who, when I stop looking around and instead look inside, whispers “Be still. Know that I am God”.

And you know what? When control is realized as impossible but we have assurance that the One who loves to depths we can’t imagine is in control, it is so easy to let go.